We’re going to talk about the mental game of learning.

Learning is extraordinarily psychological. Your mind is either your greatest ally or your greatest enemy on the learning journey. We have to pay exquisite attention to our mental state. If we get lost in negative self-talk, doubt, and victimhood, we’re in no position to learn successfully.

An unhealthy mindset catches up with us. At the slightest sign of failure, our gremlins will pounce and bring us crashing to the ground.

I want you to start paying very close attention to how your thoughts create and twist the events in your life. If you think destructively, things in your life tend towards destruction. The opposite is also true. Think positively, you will act from that positive place, and great things will result from those actions.

Your negative beliefs and mindsets are created by you. Sure, other people influence it with what they tell you. We all have scars from the past from when people told us we weren’t capable of this or that. But you can’t change those people. Only you can only take responsibility for what’s going on in there.

You fail if you allow yourself to become conscious of failure. You succeed if you focus on success.

Your mindset can be altered by changing the thoughts that dominate your mind. Once you tune your mind to success, success will start to arrive.

Auto-Suggestion

This is a critical concept that describes how our thought patterns become imprinted in our mind, enter the subconscious, and eventually cause us to behave in predictable ways that match the content of those thoughts.

The subconscious will internalise and automate any thoughts or stimuli, regardless of their impact on us.
So we must control what becomes habitual. If we continually allow negative thoughts, fears and limiting beliefs to dominate, these will dominate our conscious and subconscious thought. This is a meditative exercise: it requires attention and clarity to see your thoughts before they overtake you.

The subconscious mind is like fertile earth. You reap what you sow. If you don’t sow the seeds for success, it’s likely that weeds will grow and insects will take over the plot.

So on this learning journey, we feed our mind with positive content until we automatically act in accordance with it. Subconscious programming works best when you use inspiring, stirring messages.

If your desire doesn’t stir up passion or excitement, you’re not going to experience a mental shift. That passion is like yeast in the bread-making process.

Why Use Positive Auto-suggestion?

Once you have imprinted a desire or goal, you’ll start having ideas and inspirations as to how to reach it. Your creativity will turn on.

You also have to have dominion over your thoughts and all the words you hear. If you identify the negativity in them, they won’t affect you. If you don’t, they’ll hijack your efforts.

Napoleon Hill tells us that with practice we will have such control over our influences that nothing negative can be permanently stored in the mind.

Picture yourself as the gatekeeper at the entrance to a beautiful city. If criminals and vagabonds come buzzing around the city walls, you call the guards. They’re not getting in because they’ll ruin the beauty of the city. But when the artisans and royalty come by, you let them in. Same goes with the mind. You’re the gatekeeper to an incredibly powerful hive of activity. Keep out the bad eggs.

When you experience success in your journey, use it to gain self-assurance and taste the winning feeling. It will then spill over into the rest of your efforts. You can then replay those successful occasions in your mind and you’ll tune up the subconscious.

Method

We’re going to look at further exercises for mentality in later posts. For now, try the following:

1. Be acutely aware of all the ideas you have about yourself and your abilities.
2. Whenever you experience a negative, self-defeating thought, replace it with a positive one. Turn it 180 degrees.